Rapid development of electronic industries and IT technologies creates a new culture, called an information-oriented society, and mobile phones become necessaries.
Along with accelerated techniques, a mobile phone has been integrated with various functions such as a camera, a moving picture, a banking, Internet, MP3 or the like, which leads to great ripple effect, for example the change of structures of related industries.
Since 1984 in which a mobile phone was served for the first time in Korea, mobile phone users have continuously increased, the number of which has reached 49,608,721 in Korea (the survey material of the Korean Communications Commission, June 2010) and about 3.9 billion in the world, about 55% of the total population.
In particular, new functions and design changes of mobile phones create alternative demand to young consumers, which shortens the mobile phone change period.
This phenomenon accelerates discharge of end-of-life mobile phones, and the increase of end-of-life mobile phones has become a serious threatening element to the environment. Therefore, in view of the prevention of environmental contamination and the recycling of resources, much attention is being paid to appropriate collection and management of end-of-life mobile phones over the world.
—Detailed Cases of End-of-Life Mobile Phone Recycling in Various Countries—
In USA, the mobile phone recycling rule was enacted in 2004, and the mobile phone recycling rule has regulations about reuse, recycling and appropriate treatment of mobile phones.
In addition, In Europe, a mobile phone was included in the information communication device group (2005) in the Waste Electrical Electronic Equipment (WEEE), and a target recycling ratio is set to actively construct a methodical collecting and recycling system.
In Korea, a mobile phone was included as an item for the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) (2005), and producers are obligated to recycle a fixed quantity of end-of-life mobile phones every year.
In spite of the implementation of the above rules, the end-of-life mobile phone collect rate tends to decrease every year, and thus it is needed to develop a more efficient and more rational collection system. In fact, 1,600 end-of-life mobile phones are being generated every year, and as shown in FIG. 20, a very small amount of end-of-life mobile phones less than 1.2% (480,000/34,000,000) as an annual average has been collected during last four years.
—Environmental Problems Caused by End-of-Life Mobile Phones—
A mobile phone generally contains harmful substances such as lead, arsenic or the like and valuable metals such as gold, silver, cobalt or the like, though they differ depending on manufacturers, models, production time or the like.
Plastic, glass, iron, aluminum, cobalt, copper, nickels or the like are contained in a large quantity (1% or above), bromide, chrome, lead, cadmium, manganese, tungsten or the like are contained in a small quantity (0.1 to 1%), and antimony, arsenic, barium, gold, magnesium, palladium or the like are contained in a tiny quantity (less than 0.1%).
In addition, as shown in Table 1 below, LCD, a cladding, a PCB, a battery or the like of a mobile phone mostly contain harmful substances, which is a main cause of environmental pollution.
TABLE 1ComponentMaterialsEnvironmental effectsPCBsFR4 boardEnvironmental pollution caused by thematerialuse of polybrominated compoundsPb solderingEmission of harmful heavy metal PbGlass fiberLow environmental effectsEpoxy resinLow environmental effectsVarious electronicEmission of harmful heavy metals suchpartsas Cr, Be, Cd, Pb or the likeCuSubstantially no environmental effect.BatteryNiCd batteryEmission of CdLi ion batteryEmission of contaminants when Cu, Al,Co, Li or the like is wastedLCDaromaticThe entire LCD panel contains toxiccompoundsubstancesCladdingPolycarbonateEnvironmental pollution due to thedifficulty in recyclingABS mixture
Considering the above components and substances, an end-of-life mobile phone should be suitably collected and environment-friendly treated.
—Economic Effects According to Recycling of End-of-Life Mobile Phones—
Since mobile phones contain useful metals in addition to harmful substances mentioned above, if a systematic collecting network is constructed, various valuable metals may be obtained.
For example, 1 ton of mobile phones contains 280 g of gold (1 ton of gold ore contains 4 g of gold on average), which is about 70 times in comparison to the case of obtaining gold by smelting ore of the same weight. Therefore, end-of-life mobile phones are investigated as having great values in view of the use of resources.
In addition, mobile phones are also evaluated as having great business value since they contain a large quantity of valuable metals such as silver, palladium, rhodium, cobalt or the like in addition to gold, as shown in Table 2 below.
TABLE 2MetalsGoldSilverCopperPalladiumRhodiumCobaltComponents0.040.2140.030.00227.4(g/EA)
In addition, a monetary value of valuable metals obtained from one mobile phone is 3,560 won, and if 20% of end-of-life mobile phones (about 1 million) collected in 2010 is recycled, the recycled phones may give an economic value of about 712,000,000 won (see Table 3 below)
TABLE 3Contents of valuableUnit price (won/g, calculatedmetalsbased on the data of the KoreaAmount(based on onePublic Procurement Service inofMetalsmobile phone)2010)moneyGold0.0442,1221684.9Silver0.2595119.0Copper140.912.6Palladium0.0311,116333.5Rhodium0.002546321.9.3Cobalt27.447.51301.5Sum3560.89
Therefore, if end-of-life mobile phones are reused, it is possible to prevent primary environmental pollution occurring during a mobile phone production process and secondary environmental effects caused by the waste of the mobile phone, and also a good economic effect may be expected in view of resource saving.
However, even though forty recycling companies are in operation for collecting valuable metals in Korea, end-of-life mobile phones are collected together with other home appliances due to the shortage of end-of-life mobile phones.
End-of-life mobile phones have a very low collect rate among items included in the Extended Producer Responsibility recycling rule, in comparison to PET bottles having a collect rate of 76.4%, metal cans having a collect rate of 75.6%, glass bottles having a collect rate of 75.1%, batteries having a collect rate of 60% or the like, and in most cases, end-of-life mobile phones are collected through a one-shot event of a mobile communication company, an enterprise or a local government.
As shown in FIG. 21, in an existing end-of-life mobile phone collecting system, most mobile phones are collected through compensation sales due to the exchange of mobile phones or by post offices or local governments, and the collected end-of-life mobile phones are transferred to recycling companies, during which reusable mobile phones are distributed again as rental phones or secondhand mobile phones.
In spite of such a collecting system, the collect rate of end-of-life mobile phones is decreasing since consumers may not easily return end-of-life mobile phones and there is no suitable compensation system for the returned end-of-life mobile phones.
In addition, as shown in FIG. 22, most consumers up to 47% leave old mobile phones at home since they do not know how to treat an exchanged mobile phone or due to low compensation, and there are generally two or three mobile phones left alone at home. Like this, end-of-life mobile phones are accumulated, and as time goes, the end-of-life mobile phones become household waste.
<Problems of the Existing End-of-Life Mobile Phone Collecting System>
The existing end-of-life mobile phone collecting system described above has the following problems.
1) Absence of convenience in collecting—there is no much place where end-of-life mobile phones can be freely and conveniently collected, except for mobile phone agents.
2) Insufficient compensation system and low compensation—mobile phones are mostly collected as donation, and the interest in collection of end-of-life mobile phones is low due to low compensation and low deposit of manufacturers.
3) Leakage of personal information—since personal information may be leaked or illegally used when an end-of-life mobile phone is wasted, end-of-life mobile phones are not actively collected.
4) Imperfect or absent legislation—obligation to collect end-of-life mobile phones, centralization of collected old mobile phones and product recycling rules are practically insufficient.
Therefore, in order to lead neglected mobile phone to the recycling industry, it is needed to give a clear incentive to consumers, and it is also needed to develop compensation system and equipment by which everyone can easily and conveniently return or donate end-of-life mobile phones.